Scrapbooking Made Simple

In my never ending quest to save money on my scrapbooking I've been wanting to start digital scrapbooking. Well I'm happy to say I now have a laptop... yeah.... don't ask me any nerd questions about it... it's a laptop, it works.... it's new.... that's all I know... Now the really hard part starts.... I have to learn how to digi-scrap..... I have a program on my laptop that will apparently do this... but I don't know anything about it... so it'll be a while before I'm completing layouts worthy of being posted. On a brighter note I found an excellent resource site where you can download some backgrounds, brushes and embellishments. http://www.mistypink.net/ They look totally original to me and I think rather pretty. See what you think.. Let me know!

I was just reading Angie Pedersons Blog http://angiepedersen.typepad.com/blogofme/ and she's talking about doing a layout for her "About Me" book on the Goddess she identifies with? I followed this cool link to : http://ynr.blogthings.com/whatgoddessareyouquiz/outcome.php and got the following rating: You Are Aphrodite! A total shining star with a ton of admirers And no wonder: you live life to the fullest! When things get bad, you can easily take off to a happier place But occasionally, you need to deal with problems head on What Goddess Are You? It's lots of fun give it a try.... I might go explore a layout on this theme now...... mmmm

This is the layout I completed last night. I love these photos taken on our holiday to the sunshine coast in september 2006. My son picked an ice-cream flavour called strawberry shortcake... but then as sometimes happens.... he didn't like it... so his solution was simple... share with his sister. Luckily she didn't mind! I thought I'd try a technique for hidden journalling that allows you to open the journalling box despite the rest of the layout being inside your page protector. Here I've used the smallest photo as the 'book cover' for my journalling. This section is raised off the layout via magnets that allow this photo to be on the outside of the page protector. This is a really cheap layout with the magnet costing $2 for a set of 6 (pairs), my chipboard letters (share) and arrow are off the back of old notebooks and the "bling" comes in a packet of 50 pieces for $2 and the larger blue bling flower is off my daughters/ hairclip... so all tha...

I'm feeling very lucky. I'm scrapbooking tonight. I have a plan for a friend to come over next Friday and scrapbook (she's a newbie so it's fun sharing techniques and info) then the following weekend I'm having a scrapbooking day with my best scrapbuddy..... aaah bliss can it get any better than this? I'm working on a layout at the moment of my kids sharing an ice-cream. It's one of those moments I'll want to share with them when they're teenagers and hate each other ... lol... anyway I'm pushing my usual design style a bit. Since doing the challenges for the design team I'm finding I'm stepping out of my comfort zone more and more. In this case I'm using three pattern papers. They're co-ordinating papers so I didn't have to "match" them myself but I would usually only use one pattern and two plains or if using more patterns I would use them in small sections or blocks... this one is a layered effect with lots of ink...

Well I've finished my cards for the design team application and one of the questions was a bit of a challenge for me ... You had to make a card using your favourite techniques.... This was a little difficult for me to pin down at first because I wasn't sure what my favourite techniques were... I guess Stamping is a favourite as I use it all the time.... but after that it got a little more challenging..... I usually have a concept or idea that I'm working with and will use whatever techniques I feel will compliment that layout best. This time I went with Stamping, Doodling, tearing, inking and shabby... So now we just have to wait and see. (keep your fingers crossed for me!) I did start to think though if my albums do share any common elements. So I sat down and looked at them with fresh eyes. I couldn't really see any common techniques that I use alot except for stamping. And the only reason I use stamping more than anything else is because it's a really econ...

Well as a few of you know I'm applying for a design team. It's very exciting. The challenge this week was to make some cards. I don't do this very often. I have such alot of scrapbooking pages to complete so I'm usually focusing my time on working on the backlog of photos' waiting for me. So this was rather nice. A chance to be creative for the sake of being creative! I wish I could put my work up here so you could all check it out and vote for the ones you like best. As usual when I press my creative button I get carried away and do way more than I was asked to do... then I have to chose my favourite.... Very hard! Oh well the challenges finish this week so I should be able to put up my work for you all to critque in..... a couple of months.... (lol... don't worry if I;m accepted I'm sure I'll be able to upload them sooner) In the mean time I'll be waiting with all my fingers crossed for the results.... To keep myself occupied I've been doin...

Today I hit the mother load of good value purchases. I purchased this magazine at my local newsagent. At $11.95 it is a bit steep but pretty average for scrapbooking magazines here. But here's the good news. With my magazine I received a double sided embossing template..... FREE... as welll as three pages of free papers and pictures to use for making cards and then I noticed as an added bonus that the packaging the magazine came in has a butterfly and hearts printed on the plastic... so I think I'll get a use out of the plastic wrapping as well! I find magazines to be one of those purchases I'd prefer to do without as I can definitely think of better things to spend $11 on... but when I get a free stencil and free papers with it.. how can I resist? But if you'd like to minimise your magazine purchases I suggest you borrow them from the library to peruse whenever possible. Also if you have to buy magazines buy them with a friend or take the yearly subscription saving a...